


cold(blooded) comfort

by susiecarter



Category: DC Extended Universe, Suicide Squad (2016)
Genre: Extra Treat, Huddling For Warmth, Human/Non-Human Relationship, Loyalty, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Storms, ToT: Monster Mash, Trick or Treat: Treat, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-30
Updated: 2018-10-30
Packaged: 2019-08-11 01:56:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16466507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/susiecarter/pseuds/susiecarter
Summary: "Motherfucking ow, jesus."Croc grips GQ a little tighter and keeps moving. No point looking at him. Croc knows what he looks like—looks like shit, right now—and it's more important to keep his eyes ahead. Ground's rocky as hell. GQ's going to have way more to complain about if Croc drops him. "It'd hurt less if you hadn't gotten shot," he tells GQ, flat.





	cold(blooded) comfort

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wallflowering](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wallflowering/gifts).



> I ... may have accidentally mixed up your Multifandom Tropefest letter with your ToT letter, wallflowering, which I hope is okay—even once I realized what I'd done, I just couldn't shake your prompts about rain, extractions, not-quite-huddling-for-warmth, and the complications of playing out that scenario with Killer Croc. /o\ :D I just hope you like this, and that you've had a wonderful ToT! ♥

 

 

"Motherfucking ow, jesus."

Croc grips GQ a little tighter and keeps moving. No point looking at him. Croc knows what he looks like—looks like shit, right now—and it's more important to keep his eyes ahead. Ground's rocky as hell. GQ's going to have way more to complain about if Croc drops him. "It'd hurt less if you hadn't gotten shot," he tells GQ, flat.

GQ laughs against Croc's shoulder. Just a breath, really. Not enough to hurt him any more than he's already hurt. "Wow, yeah, thanks. Thanks. That's great advice, dude, much appreciated."

He coughs a little, wet and harsh. After he's done, he keeps talking, but that's okay. Croc doesn't mind. GQ's bitching means he's awake. Awake, aware, able to move his face. Alive.

It doesn't take them too much longer to reach the coordinates where the extraction team's picking them up, anyway. Down the side of a rocky slope, clearing opening up all of a sudden out of the bracken. Just big enough to land a chopper, Croc's pretty sure.

And there's cover, too. Which is good, because Croc's thinking it might be a while before they get out of here.

He slants a look up at the black sky over them. He can see where it's already raining, south of them and a little west. Can smell it, too.

By the time the first handful of drops hit them, he's set GQ down against the lee side of the hill. The rock juts up funny, making an overhang just about big enough for GQ. Who's still bitching most of the way down, and then tries to shift himself further in on his own and goes fishbelly-pale, sick-looking with pain.

"Stupid," Croc tells him, sharp, and gets a hand around his back to lift him up a little, move him that way.

Because it was stupid. No reason for him to try to do it himself when Croc's right here. He got shot. Croc didn't.

Croc growls a little in his throat, and shoves at the makeshift bandage—some dead guy's shirt—so it presses tighter to GQ's side. He doesn't need to move it to see how much GQ's bleeding. He can smell that even better than the rain. Sharp, metallic, everywhere. GQ hardly smells like himself at all, with all that blood on him.

Makes Croc want to wash him clean.

But that's not how it works. Pressure on the wound, Croc knows that part. And the rain's not going to help. It's already getting heavier, fat drops spattering along the ridge of Croc's back. Cold, and GQ's still bleeding, and nobody's flying a chopper through that storm. Not for two chumps from the Suicide Squad.

Stupid, Croc thinks again. GQ shouldn't have gotten shot. Croc had been right there, and GQ shouldn't have gotten shot.

Lots of things hurt less when GQ didn't get shot.

"Hey."

There's a hand over the back of Croc's. Croc looks up.

"I know that face," GQ says. "You self-centered egotistical shithead, don't even try to tell me you've decided this is your fault."

Croc looks away. "You got shot. I'm bulletproof."

"And I'm the only person hot enough to make this stupid ARGUS dive suit look good," GQ says. "We're sharing irrelevant facts about ourselves, right? That's what we're doing now? Because I don't see what the hell your scary-ass mutant biology has to do with anything." He pushes himself up a little with his free arm, and maybe gets kind of pasty but not as bad as last time. "I got my own stupid ass shot, okay? That's not your problem, man—"

"Yeah, it is," Croc says, and keeps his hand right where it is: following the curve of GQ's ribcage, moving with GQ every time he breathes. Under GQ's hand, which is a lot smaller. Smaller, softer. Breakable. "It is my problem."

He doesn't mean because he had to carry GQ out of there. Or because it slowed them both down long enough for this storm to move in. Or even because there's blood on him, which GQ knows already he doesn't like much.

He doesn't mean any of that. And the way GQ looks at him after he says it, startled, weak flush trying to rise in his wan face, says GQ knows it.

He looks away and hunches closer. Between him and the rock, GQ's pretty well covered. Croc's big enough to block out almost all the rain, except now and then when the wind picks up just right.

But keeping GQ dry is only half of it. He's cold, too. Croc can feel it, pressed this close. Even if his hand weren't on GQ, he'd feel it. Just a couple little tremors at first, but soon enough GQ's full-on shivering, jaw clenched like as long as his teeth don't rattle Croc won't notice.

Croc digs clawed toes into the arch of the rock until he can hear it start to crack. There's all kinds of shit he can do that nobody else can. That's why he's alive—because Waller figured he'd be useful. And he is, all kinds of ways. He can swim. He can climb. He can smell things other people can't smell. He's strong. He can kill a lot of people and he can do it fast.

But he doesn't want to be useful to Waller, he wants to be useful to GQ. And for all the shit he can do, he's not—he can't—

He can't keep GQ warm. Not because he doesn't know how, not because he doesn't want to. Because of what he is.

Other people always want him to be different. Smaller, nicer, normal. More like them. Croc used to think maybe Waller was the first person he'd ever met who didn't, but that was because it helped her, not him. And then, maybe, there had been GQ.

Not at first. At first, GQ'd looked at him the same way everybody else had. But it had been different after Midway. Croc didn't like humans; still doesn't. But he's pretty sure he likes GQ. And now—

Now GQ's cold, and Croc can't do shit.

He looks at GQ's hand on his, and GQ's pale damp face: eyes screwed shut, mouth pinched, tired and hurting. GQ's still breathing. Croc's done what he can. But it's not enough. It doesn't feel like enough.

"Sorry," he says.

GQ cracks an eye. "What? What for? You're not back on this fucking bulletproof thing, are you? Because that's bullshit, man. Do not make me turn this near-death experience around—"

"You're cold," Croc says.

"Well, sure. It's cold out here, 'here' being the ass end of the wilderness and all. What, you control the weather now?" GQ pauses. "I mean, I guess in a way you do, because you're sure as hell keeping it from raining in here. You like it warm, though, right? You don't have to stay like that if it's messing with you. If you're going to, like—torpor on me or something. A little cold water isn't going to kill me before the bullet does, dude."

"No," Croc says, and he didn't mean for it to sound so much like he's mad, except he kind of is. "Nothing's going to fucking kill you."

"Sure, sure, whatever you say," GQ says, and something about his voice is better now. A little warmer, a little stronger. He thinks it's funny.

"Fuck you," Croc mutters.

"Mm, not tonight, honey," GQ says, letting that one open eye drop shut again. "I've got a headache. And also, you know, a hole in my side."

Croc doesn't know why that makes it easier to say, but it does. "You should have a person, that's all. Sorry."

"Are you sure you aren't the one who got concussed today?" GQ says. "Because you're making even less sense than usual. You are a person, what the hell."

"No, like," Croc says, struggling, and then gives the fuck up. "Somebody warm. You know."

That gets both of GQ's eyes open, GQ staring at him, brow furrowed.

Croc's not sure why. He likes GQ; GQ maybe likes him okay, too. But there's never been anybody but Croc who'd pick Croc over somebody else. Not in any way that matters.

Except when GQ opens his mouth at last, what he says is, "No. What I know is that you watch my back, which makes me the luckiest guy in ARGUS, and there's nobody else I'd rather have princess-carry me out of the jaws of death. Okay?"

Croc blinks.

"I can't believe you're making me do this," GQ tells him. "I can't believe you've left me absolutely no other option except something so stupid even I know it's stupid," and then he heaves himself up without warning, straining and gasping, to sling his free arm up in one desperate jerk and hook it around Croc's neck. "This, right here? _This_ is your fault," GQ adds, and kisses him.

He's tugged Croc down a little, with his weight and the angle and all. The rain's getting in. It must be going up his sleeve, down his arm. He's shaking, the muscles in his side clenched under Croc's hand. It has to hurt. And he tastes like blood, like pain.

Croc kisses him back and doesn't let go, and he's pretty sure behind him somewhere, through the rain, he can hear the whirring blades of an ARGUS chopper.

 

 


End file.
